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Collection Of Interviews Brings Inspiration To Readers
Westchester County Business Journal - April 19, 2004
What is the secret to being a successful business leader?
There is no single, quick answer, Eric Yaverbaum of Larchmont, president and co-founding partner of Jericho Communications Inc., will tell you.
His recently released "Leadership Secrets of the World's Most Successful CEOs" is a collection of interviews he did with no fewer than 100 corporate presidents, chief executive officers, chief operating officers and other top executives of Staples, Radio Shack, 7-Eleven, Xerox, Hewlett-Packard, and other major companies.
"There's no one way to be successful in business," said Yaverbaum, who also wrote "Public Relations for Dummies," and "I'll Get Back to You," and is a frequent guest on the lecture circuit. "Each executive has his or her own way of leading."
He got the idea for the book after having dinner with several CEOs - including Richard Grasso, then the head of the New York Stock Exchange - about two months following the horrific terrorist attacks of 9/11. "We were talking about Sept. 11, and how Dick (Grasso) and the others had to make instant decisions and quickly act after the planes hit," he recalled.
Yaverbaum realized that each CEO had his or her own way of dealing with the crisis, and a book about individual strategies of leadership "had to be written," he said.
Elizabeth Elting, 38, who founded Manhattan-based TransPerfect Translations - a foreign-language translation service - 12 years ago, said she keeps Yaverbaum's book on her night table and reads, or rereads, a chapter each night.
It's not because she's one of the CEO's whom Yaverbaum profiled. "I love reading books on how people have become successful," she told the Business Journal. "You can learn that there are many keys to great leadership."
One key she cited in the book was: "Let your clients and employees know you care about them. Ask them how to make the company better. Measure people's performance, and manage and lead them based on those numbers."
-- David J. Glenn
About TransPerfect
TransPerfect is a diversified family of companies providing a full array of international communication services in 22 offices worldwide, including document management, translation, and staffing solutions. TransPerfect is ISO 9001:2000 certified which means it has implemented the most rigorous quality assurance process, according to criteria set forth by the International Organization for Standardization. The wide range of services it provides includes imaging, reprographic services, electronic data discovery, multilingual OCR, electronic labeling, coding, on-site imaging and copying, as well as staffing, and a full suite of translation and interpretation solutions. Headquarters are in New York City.
